A Symphony of Echoes (The Chronicles of St Mary's, #2)

I reached behind my head and pulled out a long hairpin. I meant to shove it down its ear but it turned its head, and I sunk it into its eye instead. No credit to me, it did it to itself. It uttered a shrieking, wailing sort of cry and fell backwards, clawing with clumsy hands. I followed it up with a short blast of pepper spray, directly into its ruined eye.

It wailed again and threw itself at me. I saw nothing, but suddenly my face was on fire. I thought it had thrown the kettle at me. I could feel hot liquid running down my face and thought I’d been scalded. Its breath was in my face, its tongue falling from its mouth. I thought I was finished when, from the floor, Kal said hoarsely, ‘Now,’ and wrapped her arms around its legs, just below the knees. I shoved hard. It crashed to the floor. Hard. The impact caused a locker door to swing open, and hazily, I saw the fire axe.

I seized the extinguisher again and dropped it from waist height onto its face. It bellowed, its broken mouth opening and closing. Its arms flailed on Kal’s back, ripping through fabric and flesh, through to the bone. She was still screaming, but she never let go. She wrapped herself around it, hampering its movements as best she could. She was my friend and she never let go.

I fumbled for the fire axe.

It’s really not that easy to chop someone’s head off. I swung the axe wildly. I couldn’t see properly. I nearly took my own foot off twice. It took eleven strokes. I counted them. Every one. There was blood everywhere. Our blood. Kal’s and mine. Kal was soaked in it. I couldn’t make out the colour of her hair. I wasn’t even sure she was still alive. My whole front was red with fresh, wet blood. I had no idea where it was all coming from. I didn’t know half my face was hanging off.

On the eleventh stroke, the mangled head slowly rolled away from the body. A small amount of a thick, brownish-fluid oozed sluggishly from the torso, wrinkled almost immediately, and began to congeal. The smell made me heave.

Suddenly, there was silence.

A soft moan from Kal brought me back. Without letting go of the axe, I pulled out a pillow and got her to curl up around it.

‘Press hard, Kal; try to stop the bleeding.’ She was deathly white, but nodded slightly. She was still with me.

I stepped back, carefully avoiding that sticky pool of fluid. I leaned against the wall, chest heaving in that sodding corset and tried to get a grip. I had a vague idea of re-setting the co-ordinates to somewhere such as the Cretaceous, and just pitching it out of the pod. I really didn’t want to spend what little time I had left with that thing rotting nearby. However, I had no longer had any control over this pod. We were going to die in here. We couldn’t get out.

I turned and looked at the screen. All the security team was still there – no one had moved. The Boss, Dieter, Peterson – they would all be watching this from the monitor room. I spared a thought for them. And Leon Farrell – what was he feeling at this moment? I couldn’t afford to think about that now. I turned back into the pod.

And then, oh God, the worst moment of all.

Even as I looked, the head, a good eighteen inches from the torso and with one of my hairpins still sticking out of its eye, rolled back on itself. Back towards the body. The remaining eye opened, found me, and faintly, the lips smiled.

I’ve had some bad moments in my life and there were more to come, but this was one of the worst because I realised then that this was just part of the game. These were just the opening moves. I looked around at the blood-soaked pod, Kalinda, unconscious and possibly dying at my feet and then back again to this un-killable thing. This was it. This was hell. There was no escape. We were damned for all eternity. And this was just the first fifteen minutes.

The gun! Somewhere in this abattoir was Kal’s gun. We had no hope of survival, but I could make our ending a great deal easier. I would shoot Kal and then myself. Then they could bury the pod, or drop it into the sea, and that would be the end of it.

I scrabbled one-handed, clumsy because I wouldn’t take my eyes off whatever it was for more than a second, and I wasn’t going to let go of the axe, either. I found the gun kicked under my seat. Only one shot fired.

I stood over Kal, emptied my head of all thoughts, and commended our souls to the god of historians.

Something crackled and I imagined that a voice said, ‘Max, stand down. Put down the gun.’

I tightened my grip and blinked away the tears. Don’t weaken now.

The door opened. Four masked and suited guards were there, two standing, two kneeling, weapons raised and swinging back and forth, covering every inch of the pod.

Major Guthrie said, ‘Max, it’s me, Ian. Put down the gun,’ and stepping carefully through the blood, crossed to the toilet and pulled open the door. Another guard immediately took his place. Together, they formed an impenetrable barrier across the door. Nothing could get out.

He shouted, ‘Clear!’ and shouldering his weapon, bent over Kal, looking for a pulse. ‘OK, let’s get her out.’

Two men entered, picked up Kal, and carried her out.